Beaker and Saucer

Dateca. 1750

MediumHard-paste porcelain

DimensionsBeaker: OH: 2 3/4"; Diam.: 3" Saucer: Diam.: 5 1/4"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase, The Buddy Taub Foundation, Dennis A. Roach and Jill Roach Directors

Object number2013-30,A&B

DescriptionChinese porcelain beaker and saucer decorated in underglaze blue with groups of cloves, nutmeg, and pineapples. Interior rims painted with chain lozenge borders.Label TextThis unusual design depicting a pineapple and nutmeg and clove sprigs was taken from Pierre Pomet's A Compleat History of Drugs (London, 1712) after the original drawings from the French version, Histoire Generale des Drogues (Paris, 1694). Rarely depicted on Chinese export porcelain, few examples of botanical patterns survive. Saucers from a tea service thus decorated were recovered from the wreck of a British East India ship, the Griffin. Returning from China laden with tea, spices, and porcelain, the ship sank off the coast of the Philippines in 1761.

Three plates from a dinner service were excavated from a Philadelphia privy associated with an early house at 13 Gray's (Morris) Alley. The privy’s 1750 closure indicates that the plates were deposited prior to 1750, more than ten years before the Griffin shipwreck. At that time, the house was occupied by William and Patience Annis. A sea captain who traveled regularly around the Atlantic world, Annis could have purchased the plates on a trip to England.
ProvenanceHeirloom & Howard, Ltd.